


Sticks and Stones

by CedanyTheBold



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Best Friends, Coming of Age, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, kid!Bucky, kid!steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 05:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13710399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CedanyTheBold/pseuds/CedanyTheBold
Summary: From the time Steve Rogers started school to the time he enlisted, there was always one constant in his life--his best friend, Bucky Barnes. Even when he had nothing, he had Bucky.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't going to be as much of a coherent story as much as little 'slice of life' pieces. I'm working on a longer Bucky-centric fic and while coming up with memories for him, I started writing these little scenes. I'm probably never going to be used in that story, but I wanted to post them anyway.

September 1925

It was the first day of first grade, and a boy named Steve was pinned against the fence at recess. He was small for his age, and sickly, and the rest of the boys in his class towered over him by nearly a foot. He lost count of how many there were—ten, maybe twelve—but it took four of them to hold the squirming boy down by his wrists and ankles. They took turns slapping him across the face and kicking him in the shins, and then one came up and landed a decent punch right in his stomach, and Steve doubled over, gasping for air. He felt sick. He wanted to cry.

Someone came barreling through the crowd like a bowling ball and offered a hand to the small boy, draping Steve’s scrawny arm around his shoulders and carrying him away.

“They didn’t rough you up too bad, did they?” he asked once they were a safe distance away. The crowd dissipated just as easily as they had gathered. Their target was gone and their fun was over.

Steve looked up at him through one non-swollen eye and took in just how big this boy was compared to him. He was even taller than the boys who were beating him up, and broader, but looked so different. His two front teeth were missing, and when he smiled at Steve his tongue stuck out through the gap. Bright blue eyes crinkled up at the corners, shaggy brown hair falling across them.

“I’m fine,” he tried to say, but coughed and a stream of blood trickled down his chin. His stomach was sore, and he was sure he’d end up with a bruise there too, along with the ones blooming across his bony shins. His mother was not going to be happy.

“You don’t look fine,” the other boy said. “Come on, I’ll take you to the nurse.”

********************************

“You can stay in here until the end of the day,” the nurse said, although she was wondering what kind of parent would send such a sickly child to a regular school instead of an asylum that would be better prepared to care for him. She had already been informed of the fragile seven-year-old’s health, and the school’s administration had informed his mother that he would be well taken care of, after she had practically moved heaven and earth to get him admitted. No son of hers, she had said, would be sent to an institution. Steve was smart, and he deserved an education.

The older boy who brought him was still hanging around the doorway, fiddling with his shirt collar. “I’ll come by at the end of the day to walk you home,” he said. “It’s not far, right?”

Steve shook his aching head. “Three blocks,” he told him.

“You never told me your name, by the way,” his new friend remembered. “I’m James, but most people call me Bucky.”

“Steve.”

“See you later, Steve,”

Bucky smiled, before disappearing down the hallway.

“Mr. Barnes, you forgot your hall pass!” the nurse called after him.

**********************

“Ready?” Bucky asked, holding Steve’s jacket out to him. Steve hobbled across the room and took it but didn’t put it on, holding it loosely in one bandaged hand. For the second time that day, Bucky held Steve’s arm across his shoulders and wrapped his own around the smaller boy’s waist. They only made it as far as the sidewalk before Steve’s knees buckled.

“Whoa,” Bucky said, tightening his hold. “You gonna be able to make it three blocks?”

“No,” Steve admitted sheepishly. Bucky sat him down on the steps and crouched down.

“Get on my back,” he said.

“You sure?”

“Sure, I’m sure.” Steve could hear the smile in his voice and climbed on, hoping he wouldn’t hurt Bucky by hanging on as tight as he had to. But he didn’t even stagger as they started off on their way, Steve giving him directions to the small apartment where he lived with his mother.

Bucky paused for a minute when he got to the rickety metal stairs leading up to the third-floor apartment from an alleyway, but poor Steve was panting against his shoulder and probably wouldn’t make it that far, so he hoisted him up, adjusting his hold, and cautiously began climbing.

By the time he reached the door he was winded too, and paused to catch his breath before knocking. A petite blond woman in a nurse’s uniform answered the door.

“Oh, Steve,” she gasped, seeming not to notice the boy carrying him.

“Hello, ma’am,” Bucky said politely. “My name is James, but everybody calls me Bucky. Steve’s tired, but I think he’s okay.”

The woman smiled warmly at him. “Thank you for bringing him home safely,” she said, a slight accent coloring her words. She took the near-unconscious Steve from him, holding him in one arm as easily as if he were a baby. “I’ve just made a cake—won’t you come in for a bit and have some?”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he smiled, “That sounds good.”


	2. February 1929

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets sick. Really sick. And Bucky, of course, is worried, because no twelve year old kid should have to face losing his best friend.

Bucky made the trek up the icy, slippery stairs to Steve’s apartment, a wooden crate with a ‘care package’ from his mother under his arm. He’d done this almost every year since they met. Every winter, without fail, Steve would come down with some horrible illness that would take him weeks to shake off. But this time was worse. He’d been stuck in bed for almost three months. Bucky hadn’t seen him since the day after Christmas, and on New Year’s Day Mrs. Rogers called to tell him not to come around, Steve was probably contagious and she didn’t want Bucky to catch whatever it was that he had. Bucky figured she knew best; she was a nurse, after all. He’d been bringing his homework every day since school had started again, but Steve’s teacher had stopped giving it to him to take two weeks ago. At this rate, she said, Steve had missed too much school and would probably have to repeat the fifth grade.

No sooner did he knock on the door than it flew open, revealing a very tired-looking and frantic Sarah Rogers. “James,” she breathed. “You shouldn’t be here.” “My ma sent this over,” he said, showing her the crate full of a few jars of homemade chicken soup, medicine, and a tin of tea.

She smiled and took it from him. “Thank her for me,” she said, but something in her eyes told him that she didn’t think it would help. “I’m sorry for startling you,” she apologized. “I’ve had to take the week off…the neighbors had been keeping an eye on him, but he took a turn for the worse and he can’t get out of bed at all now…”

“What’s he got?” Bucky asked.

She hesitated. “It’s scarlet fever,” she admitted, her eyes growing watery. “Please go, James. I’ll tell him you stopped by, but it’s really not safe for you to be here.”

“Shouldn’t he be in the hospital?”

“He’s been,” she said. “He had a high fever one night and I took him in. They said it’s possible he’ll not survive, what with his weak constitution. There was nothing they could really do, so I brought him home. I wanted him to be comfortable if these are his last days.”

Bucky said nothing, but smiled apologetically and headed back down the stairs, feeling his throat close up. Steve couldn’t die, he couldn’t, he just couldn’t…

Tears were frozen to his cheeks before he reached home, but he made sure to hide the fact that he’d been crying from his father. He was far too old to cry, and he didn’t want to get belted.

*******************

Three days later when Bucky came home from school, his mother told him that there had been a phone call for him earlier that day. Mrs. Rogers had told her that Steve had gotten even worse. The priest was coming to give him last rites, and Steve had asked if Bucky could come over so he could say goodbye. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Bucky was grabbing his coat and hat and was out the door faster than she could threaten him with a stern, “Wait till your father gets home!”

The cold air burned his lungs as he ran down five city blocks. He wondered if this was what Steve felt like all the time. Twice he slid over patches of ice, once colliding into a trashcan and the other into the side of a stern-looking man who told him to “Watch where you’re going, young man!” He might have also called him a hooligan, but by that point Bucky was too far away to hear it clearly.

It couldn’t have been ten minutes from start to finish before he was pounding on the door, calling, “Mrs. Rogers, it’s Bucky! Let me in!”

However, instead of Mrs. Rogers, a priest answered the door. “You must be James,” he said in a low voice. “Your mother said she didn’t want you coming here. I know Steve wanted to see you, but I’m sorry. You’ll have to leave.”

“You came to give him last rites,” Bucky said. “Doesn’t that mean he’s dying?”

“Yes,” the man said. “All the more reason for you not to be here. Besides it being a very serious disease, someone as young as you are shouldn’t see someone die.”

“But,” Bucky argued, his lower lip beginning to quiver despite his best efforts to keep it still. “He’s my best friend. He asked to see me. I have to say goodbye!” All his resolve faded and he burst into tears, begging, “Please…let me see him!”

The priest knelt before him, clearly unsure of what to say to an inconsolable twelve-year old boy. “I’m sorry, son. You’re a good boy from what I hear, I’m sure you will see Steve again in heaven.”

“No!” Bucky screamed as he tried to push past him, but the old man held him firmly by the shoulders. “I need to see him now!”

“Now, James, that’s no way to behave,” scolded the priest.

The noise brought Sarah Rogers rushing from her bedroom. “James,” she greeted. “I’m so glad you’re here…he’s been in and out, but every time he wakes, he’s asked for you.”

“I thought you said his mother didn’t want him coming in contact,” the man said to her over his shoulder.

“If anything happens to him I’ll see he’s taken care of,” she replied. “He’s like a second son to me. And if Mrs. Barnes sees fit to raise hell, I’ll deal with that too. I’d rather the boys have some time together while they can. Don’t you think Stevie should be happy at his last?” she asked sternly.

The priest stepped aside and Bucky entered the tiny living room, tears rolling down his cheeks. Mrs. Rodgers handed him a clean handkerchief and he took it gratefully, blowing his nose.

“Now, dear, you mustn’t cry. It will upset him.” she said gently, enveloping him in a hug. Bucky nodded. He couldn’t upset Steve. He had it bad enough already.

She led him into Steve’s tiny bedroom. It smelled of sweat and sickness and Bucky didn’t want to be in there any longer than he had to, but Steve did, and he was stuck there, and he was _dying_ , and he was too young. He shouldn’t have had to experience this for years and years.

“Hey, buddy,” Bucky whispered as he came to stand at the side of the bed. Steve’s face was blotchy and red from the fever and glistened with sweat, his lips slightly blue. “You awake?”

Steve smiled and he turned his head slightly, fever-bright eyes coming to rest on his friend’s tear-streaked face. “Hard not to be,” he croaked out. “You sure make a lot of noise.”

Bucky couldn’t help but smile. _God_ , he was going to miss him. “Don’t worry,” Steve said. “I’m not worried, and I’m not afraid. It’s going to be okay, Buck.”

“Don’t say that,” the older boy implored. “You’ll get better.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “But don’t cry anymore or I’ll have to come back as a ghost to hug you.”

In any other circumstance Bucky would have given him a playful shove, but now he just rested a hand on his shoulder. “You’re weird, Stevie.”

“I know.” he smiled.

“Can you do something for me?”

“What?” Steve asked weakly.

“Don’t give up.” Bucky said. “Try to get better. I know school ain’t the greatest, but you’re better than all the rest of them put together. You’re gonna be great someday, Steve. Because you have something that they don’t. Even the other kids who get beat up turn around and do it to somebody else, but you never have. You stick up for people.” He didn’t know how to put into words what a great and rare quality that was, and he thought it sounded dumb coming from him—a twelve year old trying to give his dying best friend a pep talk. It sounded corny, but everything he said was _true_. He didn’t know anybody else quite like him.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try.”

They sat together in silence for a while, enjoying the last of each other’s company. Bucky lost track of time. It was dark when Mrs. Rogers knocked on the door and told him that it was probably time that he headed home. “Goodbye, Steve,” he said, giving his friend’s too-thin shoulder a gentle squeeze. Steve said nothing, but smiled in reply.

*****************************

The phone rang at four-thirty on a Saturday morning, waking the entire Barnes household. Mr. Barnes answered it, prepared to have words with whoever had the audacity to call them at such an ungodly hour. Bucky lay wide awake in bed, listening to his father mutter sleepily into the phone and then say, “All right, I’ll tell him.”

His stomach churned nervously as he heard his father padding down the hall towards his room. He feigned sleep as the door creaked open and he felt him sit down on the edge of the bed, shaking him awake.

“Bucky,” he said urgently, “Wake up.”

Bucky rolled over, clamping his pillow over his ears, unprepared to hear what he knew his father was going to say next.

“What?” he said, once it was obvious that he was awake.

“That was Mrs. Rogers,” Mr. Barnes said. “Your friend Steve…”

“Oh God…”

“Will you listen?” he said sternly. “He’s okay. He’s going to live.”

Bucky had never really prayed before, in fact he had usually had to force himself not to fall asleep in church. But that morning all he could do was thank God and all the angels and saints that Mrs. Rogers was always praying to, that his best friend was alive and would remain that way. 


End file.
